


Shards

by Apocryfan (Captain_Mori)



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Atmorans, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, Dragon Cult, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fourth Era Skyrim, Merethic Era, Saarthal, Skyrim Civil War, Solstheim, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-14 09:08:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16489709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Mori/pseuds/Apocryfan
Summary: When the dangerous machinations of a renegade Thalmor operative set their eyes on the past, the Dragonborn is tasked to hunt down the crazed Altmer Wizard before irrevocable damage to the past, present, and future happens. Sent hurtling back to the Merethic Era, the Dragonborn must experience a once familiar land now made unfamiliar- and survive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Why 'Shards'? I took inspiration from 'All Dragons are shards of Aka', and also puns about ice (ice shard).  
> Chapter also contains incredibly obscure [references](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Fragmentae_Abyssum_Hermaeus_Morus) to TES Lore

Morvunskar had history. An ancient place even by Nord standards, the place had seen occupiers, warlocks, and the influences of the Daedra over the centuries.  
It had then, surprised Gwyrda that Paarthurnax had wanted to meet her there instead of The Throat of The World.  
Morvunskar was too open, too vulnerable in her mind. Not that The Throat of The World was not, though the biting winds and significant drop should one fall, definitely deterred eavesdroppers.  
Gwyrda perched on the roof of one of Morvunskar’s north-facing towers, and watched the aurora above. Streaks of pink-purple and green-blue writhed like dancers ribbons, while the occasional gold-orange stripe darted amongst them.  
She thanked Kynareth that she had worn her thick cloak that night, and tugged it tighter on her shoulders as she cursed her Bretic blood and envied the Nords for their cultural inability to feel the cold as bad she did, then looked towards where she knew Windhelm to be.  
Somewhere within the Palace of the Kings, Ulfric Stormcloak was hopefully drafting up new legislation since securing Skyrim just over a year ago. Probably. Though it was equally if not more likely that they were having a feast. Gwyrda didn’t begrudge them celebrating, though she sorely would have preferred the heat of a roaring fire and hot food over the chill of Eastmarch’s wind, and the meagre provisions she had gathered in haste.  
She definitely would’ve had a place of honour at the banquet had she asked for one, but she treasured Paarthurnax’s friendship. Besides, she hadn’t seen the Old Dov in years.  
On hearing the rush of wind above her, Gwyrda watched to see the dusty grey form of Paarthurnax circling Morvunskar. This was not unusual for dragons, as they would circle whenever they wanted to land, though what was unusual, was that the Old Dov appeared to be trailing smoke from his wings.  
Eyes wide with fear, Gwyrda leaped from the roof, shouting  
**“FEIM”** , as she fell.  
Sprinting out of Morvunskar out to an open patch of mountain dirt, she braced herself as Paarthurnax crashed into the rocky earth heavily.  
When the rain of dirt stopped falling, Gwyrda noticed that the Old Dov was the source of the smoke, and ran towards the dragon’s head.  
Paarthurnax shook his head and turned his stare towards Gwyrda,  
**“Dovahkiin, I am relieved to see you.”**  
“Old one, what’s happening?” Gwyrda asked fearfully, as the Dragon’s scales lit up with a internal glow.  
**“Krosis. There is little time to tell you.”** Paarthurnax uttered a short laugh then said, **“I can only tell you to trust your Instincts from now on. Vuth fahliil. His sinister temporal magics have pulled the strings of the Tiidrath so tight that they have become my noose.”**  
“I shall swear it,” Gwyrda said boldly, grimacing as she drew her knife across her upper arm and placed her hand in the pooling blood. “Upon my blood, I will not rest until I have ended him.”  
Pressing her bloodied handprint against her battle-axe, Gwyrda showed the blood-marked weapon to Paarthurnax.  
**“It is a terrible oath, and one that will bind you to its word. But dragon-blood alone will not see you to its completion. For that, you shall need dragon-breath.” **  
****A blast of hot silvery air flowed from the dragon’s mouth, making the head of the axe shine white-hot for several long seconds.  
The exertion of the act was visibly seen on Paarthurnax, almost on the verge of catching alight.  
**“There is no more time, Dovahkiin. I cannot hold back my death any longer. You must leave now, or all will be lost.”**  
Placing her axe in her side-sheath, Gwyrda then rushed towards the Dragon for a last embrace, then stepped back.  
“ **Zu’u los nok** , Dear Friend.”  
With great effort, the great Paarthurnax raised his head and shouted an unknowable sentence at Gwyrda, throwing her back in time with the unyielding power-force of the blinding white blast-surge.  
**“Guur fah nu, dii fahdon.”**  
And finally, the great Dragon died.

******** ** **

************The sensation of being flung back in time was not something a mortal mind should ever be meant to experience. It was an ultimately disorienting and harrowing experience, and Gwyrda was sure that somewhere, no- somewhen, Alduin himself was laughing at his nemesis.  
It was simultaneously the longest and the shortest wait as she fell through the Un-Time, battered by the fall-that-was-not-a-fall, and besieged by the psychic-echoes of great events both long-passed-and-yet-to-be as Gwyrda sank further down the Snake-River of Time.  
_‘Now you get to experience what he did,’_ was her last thought before she lost consciousness. 

******** ** **

************When Gwyrda came to, she was lying face down on a shallow snow-drift, with something lightly padding softly nearby. Stirring, Gwyrda caught a shadowy glimpse of a startled Hare bounding away from her.  
Groggily sitting up, she pulled her coarse black hair back into its ponytail, and gathered her surroundings. By her estimation, it was an hour or so before Dawn, and by the faint dusting of snow nearby probably a winter month- Frostfall she picked at random, though it had been Rain’s Hand what seemed like only an hour ago.  
Checking her gear, Gwyrda found her possessions mostly intact, though her potions and provisions had seemingly disintegrated into rot. Her hunting knives were safely in her satchel, alongside her tinderbox, bedroll, and waterskin. Her shortbow was found a few feet away, half-obscured in the snow drift, alongside her quiver which thankfully had not lost or damaged a single arrow.  
Giving her armour a cursory check, she rearranged her brigandine and dusted the snow off her gauntlets.  
Standing to survey her surroundings, she saw the recognisable shapes of snow-dusted mountains, and a shadowed mass of trees. Not too far from where she had been earlier, she surmised as she carefully climbed down the mountain. Known as Gwyrda the Goat when she was younger, she found ease in scaling awkward rock faces and climbing on top of roofs. It had got her out of several life-or-death situations when she had fought with the Dawnguard what seemed like an eternity ago.  
Greeted with the sight of a rocky plateau, Gwyrda realised that Morvunskar was not there. 

******** ** **

************It was not that Morvunskar was just simply not there- it was as if every trace of Morvunskar had been removed from Nirn, Gwyrda thought as she examined the empty plateau. But Morvunskar had always been there. This didn’t make sense to her. The High Kings of Skyrim had always interred their dead in Morvunskar- Gwyrda had read that in a book when she had studied at the College in Winterhold. For there to be no trace of the place, Gwyrda pondered, it must have meant that her foe Kelkemmeron had travelled back further than she had anticipated.  
She thought on this as she headed southwards down the mountain slope after sunrise, stopping briefly on the way to fill her waterskin at the river.  
Pleasantly surprised that she still could summon Arvak, she rode precariously over the snow-covered rocky terrain as she head northwards to Windhelm, following the river. It was a journey that were she riding a normal horse, would’ve taken perhaps six or seven hours at full trot. She had enquired about Arvak’s nature at the college, and a researcher had suggested that the skeletal horse had become some sort of ‘Bound Horse’ through attunement to the nature of the Soul Cairn, whereas another had suggested that Arvak was simply the very well preserved remains of a horse-husk -that somehow had ended up in the soul cairn- whose mind had been withered away into knowing only one word - run.  
And boy, did Arvak run. It was hard for Gwyrda to control him sometimes. The horse would run his hooves down up to his hocks, if she didn’t intervene. She knew he’d reform whole if she let him run himself lame again, but Gwyrda cared too much for Arvak to let him do that.  
Arvak wasn’t a particularly good runner by mortal standards- all parts of his equine psyche that would have told him not to run too fast, or not to run into dangerous beasts or terrain, or that he couldn’t run on water, had all been dedicated to the word ‘run’. If a horse could be capable of the thu’um, Arvak would have mastered the ‘Run’ Shout.  
At present, Arvak was straining against all of Gwyrda’s control to keep him from running them over into the Yorgrim River.  
The river had been running high, and several logs were frozen into place where the river had frozen into place.  
At a spot that looked particularly sturdy, Gwyrda dismounted and examined the spot further as Arvak disappeared back to the Soul Cairn a few seconds later with a rattling grunt.  
Picking up a nearby stone, she threw it onto the frozen river. It bounced three times, before stopping. Keeping her centre of gravity low, Gwyrda stepped carefully and firmly onto the ice. the solid firmness of the ice beneath her feet felt reassuring to her as she cautiously made her way across, thankful for choosing the narrowest part of the river where the giant boulders would make the crossing easier.  
She was halfway across, when the zip of an arrow narrowly flying over her head caught her by surprise. Darting her head behind, Gwyrda noticed a small group of four elves, dressed in an armour she didn’t fully recognise, coming after her. The shortest, the one who had shot the arrow, grabbed a second from her quiver as the other three made a wide circle of her, approaching with their weapons drawn.  
The elves were unusually pale, and their cold harsh faces looked at her angrily, with the archer’s arrow trained on her as the three others speedily argued in a language Gwyrda didn’t fully recognise. Slowly turning to face the elves got Gwyrda a harsh rebuke in that tongue, and she held up her hands away from her battle-axe and stepped cautiously backwards.  
The ice groaned and Gwyrda moved her foot quickly away from that place with a nervous smile on her face.  
“Listen my good elves, I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason why you’ve cornered me here...” she said, pausing nervously as she tested the ice behind her. “And I don’t want to fight, so how about we both go our separate ways and pretend we never saw each other?”  
The tallest elf scoffed, “You are trespassing. This land does not belong to your kind, but to the Falmeri Empire.”  
_‘Falmer, now that’s an interesting revelation.’_ Gwyrda thought, before saying aloud,  
“I--I just got here, and I didn’t know."  
“You cannot claim ignorance of this. The ruins of Saarthal are too far away for you to have just wandered ignorantly into here.”  
“Would it help if I said I wasn’t from here?”  
The elf narrowed his eyes, “We’ve been tracking your trail the past few hours. You did well to disguise your tracks as those of a horse, but there is no place for you here, Spy.”  
“You know, you sound an awful lot like the Thalmor, Snow Elf.”  
The elf called to the Archer who started aiming her arrow at Gwyrda.  
**“TIID KLO!”**  
The archer’s released bowstring slowly reverberated as Gwyrda quickly looked around to see an exit, the ice behind her was too thin, and she was unable to turn back, so she ran along the river, ignoring the beginnings of the ice cracking under the sudden rush of her weight on her. In the slowed few seconds that she had moved, the arrow had skittered against the ice, and the elves were advancing towards her though their motion and cries were distorted by the shout’s power, and the ice began cracking under the rush of the sudden shifting of weight.  
A few feet from the river’s bank, and time came rushing back with the sudden roar of breaking ice, rushing water, and the elves confused shouting.  
The ice jerked backwards, and Gwyrda slipped as the ice became unbalanced and started moving downriver. Scrambling to hold onto the ice burned her hands with the cold as she tried to remain on the fractured ice. Two of the elves had fallen into the river, and while the tallest did his best to help extricate them from the water, the archer had resumed firing at her.  
The wind was pushed out of Gwyrda as one of those arrows hit her soundly in the right side of her back, and she cried out as she fell forwards into the water.  
The flow of the river dragged her under the ice, and though she struggled to break through it, Gwyrda was knocked out when the current bashed her against the ice floes. 


	2. Chapter 2

The stale smell of hay was the first thing she was aware of when she came to. She kept her eyes closed, aware of a heavy weight on top of her and the absence of her armor around her, instead covered with something that felt a great deal lighter.  
Straining her ears to listen to her surroundings, Gwyrda heard the crackling of fire, the distant murmuring of conversation, and the ever-faint howling of wind outside. Cautiously opening her eyes, she saw she was lying on the floor on a pile of straw covered by several pelts, inside what appeared to be a shack. The interior was spartan, yet the wood had not yet grown musty with rot and age, so she surmised that the building had to have been recently made.  
“I tell you Da, I’ve seen no armor like hers. Neither has Saskr.” said one louder voice, closer to her. Gwyrda froze, and pretending to be still unconscious.  
“She’s definitely Human- I’d not suffer any nithing elf in my house. Go get Biter, son. We’ll get answers one way or another.”  
The sound of approaching footsteps made Gwyrda tense up as she felt the presence she identified as Da enter the room.  
**“WAKE UP!”** the voice shouted, causing Gwyrda to shout out in surprise, turning to jump out the furs on her side but colliding with the wall in mistake.  
She held her aching head as she looked up at the imposing man, her heart hammering in her chest.  
“Sweet Kyne, what the fuck did you do that for?” Gwyrda cursed, then noticing the swordpoint that was pointed towards her.  
It was a relatively crude object, not as refined as those of later make in future eras, yet Gwyrda had seen plenty of similar swords wielded by Draugr in the Fourth Era. The swords were long, and chunky, and though the runes on previous swords had been faded with age and heavy use, the sword tip pointing at her throat had clear cut defined runes. The man holding the sword was equally imposing, an incredibly tall and strong looking man who seemed to radiate power from his build. His hair and beard were a faded copper, though perhaps mane was more accurate by how hirsute this man was, was held back from his forehead with a leather strap. One of his eyes had been gouged out, and the other remaining eye was a darkened blue. He was also covered in a kilt and cloak made of furs, with a huge scabbard hanging on his belt.  
“We needed you up so we can question you.” said the man, his stern expression not changing when a younger man with black curly hair and green eyes brought in a large dog that strained against the leash that held it.  
Gwyrda cautiously glanced at the dog, a hulking brown thing that looked more like a bear than any dog she’d ever seen, with a dark snout and coarse wiry fur and paws that looked like they could crush a troll’s skull under them. The dog snapped angrily at her, and she looked back to the two men.  
“So who are you, and why did my boy find you in the river?”  
Gwyrda was stuck for a response immediately, and weighed her options. She could tell them all the truth, but she didn’t fancy her chances getting out of her unscathed.  
“My name’s Gilla.” She began hesitatingly, giving the name of an old friend, “I was hunting game when I got attacked by three Snow Elves.”  
“Three of them?” The man scoffed raising a hairy eyebrow at her, yet not removing the sword that he aimed at her.  
“Aye.” Gwyrda nodded, “I tried to get escape over the river, but the ice cracked and I fell under.”  
The younger man strained against the dog’s pulling of the leash, looked wordlessly to his father then back at her. It made Gwyrda feel uncomfortable.  
“Well that explains how you were in the river, Gilla.” the man growled as he pushed the sword-tip gently against her neck. “But it doesn’t explain your armor. It’s not like any Atmoran armor, or any cursed elf’s armor either. So why’s it so different?”  
“Because I made it.” Gwyrda said quietly, trying to swallow her nerves and keep a level eye with the larger man.  
“Da!” the man called out, “Don’t hurt her!”  
“You shut it, Magni. I need to know.” The man barked, turning his head to his son, and then turned to face Gwyrda. “You, made that armour?” he said slowly, taking the sword briefly away to gesture with it to her armor which had been placed on top of a barrel, enunciating every word with enough incredulity to make her feel uncomfortable.  
“I had a good teacher. One of the best.” Gwyrda nervously laughed. “And I’ll fight anyone who says different.”  
The man’s expression froze, Gwyrda flinched, anticipating an attack in fear of that she had insulted the man. The man started laughing heartily, lowering his sword.  
“See Magni, that woman’s got guts to say her teacher was better than old Hyring. Ain’t no way she’s not one of us.”  
Realising she had been holding in her breath, Gwyrda exhaled nervously.  
“Go tie Biter back up, son.” the man said, slapping him jovially on the shoulder as he sheathed his sword and extended a meaty hand towards her, strongly clasping her hand and arm in what seemed to be a precursor to the Nord’s traditional greeting. “The name’s Sterk the Just. Come join us by the fire, Gilla.”

The man had pushed a crude bowl of something that vaguely resembled stew into Gwyrda’s hands, when he had walked her to the fireside. The strange clothing that she was wearing had turned out to be one of Sterk’s oversized shirts - something that swamped her frame from how much fabric there was to accommodate all of his muscular bulk.  
Magni had sat himself down beside her, and broke off a chunk of bread for her from his own loaf which he passed to her before he began digging into his own food.  
Magni was a few inches shorter than Gwyrda, who despite standing six foot tall herself, felt dwarfed by Sterk’s build. He felt a great deal more human than Sterk did, and she remembered tales that said that in ancient times, Nords and Giants had been related. Perhaps those tales had more truth in them than she initially had given them credit for.  
“So tell me, Gilla.” Sterk began, dunking a chunk of bread into his stew, biting the stew-covered bread slowly, finishing his mouthful before continuing. “Why hunt in armor? Surely the noise would scare all your prey away. What do you think, my Saskr?”  
Gwyrda stopped mid-chew to think of a response, suddenly nervous.  
Saskr was a grim-faced balding man with a short plaited black beard and several bold tattoos over his face. He wasn’t as physically imposing as Sterk, though Gwyrda felt he was perhaps just as dangerous.  
“Perhaps she thought she’d run into trolls, love.” He sniffed, not looking up from his food. He held his hands around the bowl and pointed the soles of his feet towards the fire.  
“Trolls.” Sterk scoffed, seemingly placated as he turned back to his meal.  
Gwyrda glanced out the corner of her eye, and caught Magni looking at her face. Taking a second to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, and sent him a challenging look that made him falter and look back at his stew.  
If the Atmorans of the now were anything like the Nords of the future, Gwyrda felt reassured that asking them questions after they’d eaten would be easier. They’d be calmer, slower, and perhaps less quick to anger.  
Testing the atmosphere, she hesitatingly asked,  
“How long was I unconscious for?”  
Sterk looked at her carefully, scratched his beard thoughtfully,  
“By my reckoning, maybe two days.”  
“Two days?” Gwyrda groaned, dismayed that her search for Kelkemmeron had been delayed further.  
“Aye. Magni here kept vigil over you while you slept.” Sterk said, gesturing with a backwards thumb to his son, before chuckling under his breath. “Never seen the boy so fascinated with anyone before.”  
“Da!” Magni’s cheeks flushed crimson, then hissed in embarrassment. “You’re making it sound weird.”  
Sterk rolled his eyes, and took the empty bowls from everyone, stooping to place a kiss on Saskr’s cheek as he collected his.  
“So what are your plans, Gilla?” Saskr asked, later, while Sterk was busying himself in one of the side rooms.  
“My Plans?” Gwyrda half-said, thinking fast. She wouldn’t tell them precisely why she was here- any talk of dragons and elves would excite them too much and then they’d probably insist on following her so they could mete out bloody vengeance and slow her down even further.  
Magni turned to face her expectantly, waiting on her words.  
“I should head back to my family,” Gwyrda began, staring into the fire. “But I have some people to find out this way first before I can do that.”  
“Will you be going with the rest of the warriors to Solstheim?” Saskr asked, lighting a pipe with his fingers.  
“Solstheim?”  
“There’s been sightings of hundreds of Elf boats landing at Solstheim - gathering forces no doubt so they can eventually take back the land we now possess. Rumour is, if there’s going to be a big battle, Solstheim will be where it’s at.”  
“How far is it to Solstheim from here?”  
Saskr paused, his eyes rolled upwards in thought, chewing on the pipe as he came up with an answer. “On foot, I’d say maybe a week? Be faster if you had a horse and followed the river north.”  
“Any villages or settlements I should know about on my way?”  
“No Atmoran ones past Yngol’s Barrow,” Saskr said. “Though if you keep to the west coast you can probably join up with the rest of the warriors headed that way when you get there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun writing up Sterk and his family. I'd like to write more with them in future chapters, though for now their parts are done. Sterk is also designed with Kristofer Hivju (Tormund actor from GoT) in mind, as he plays one of my favourite characters in that series. Sterk is also the Dutch word for strong, and you can bet Sterk is the strongest Atmoran in those parts.
> 
> Also! The use of 'Nithing' here is not a misspelling!  
> "In historical Germanic society, nīþ (Old Norse: níð Old English: nīþ, nīð; Old Dutch: nīth); was a term for a social stigma implying the loss of honour and the status of a villain. A person affected with the stigma is a nīðing (Old Norse: níðingr/ᚾᛁᚦᛁᚴᛦ, Old English: nīðing, nīðgæst, or Old High German: nidding), one lower (cf. modern English beneath, modern Dutch beneed/beneden, modern German nieder[citation needed] and modern Danish and Swedish nedre) than those around him."  
> Nīþings were also regarded as a mythological fiend "that only exists to cause harm and bring certain undoing", and you can bet it's super appropriate for the eventual Nord attitude to the Falmer, where they make raids to the surface world, and the Nords then blame them for almost every instance of misfortune.


End file.
